IPL 2010 is as close as it possibly can be, with the faith of 5 teams all in the balance, as only Mumbai are certain of a position in the semi finals at this stage. It’s important to focus on your own performance, rather than dwell too much on other results, and the task is pretty clear tonight, as we must beat the Chargers and end their semi final hopes.

A win against the defending champions will not only put them out of the race for a position in the last four, but will also make our team’s position a lot safer, as a win will move us on to 12 points, providing a bit of breathing space from the rest of the pack.

Putting together a winning combination is never an easy task, particularly when you have only 4 foreign players in the line up, and a number of talented Indian players to pick from. Everything looks good when you win, but a couple of defeats make everyone examine options carefully. The RCB management team have discussed the best possible winning combination for tonight’s match, and can guarantee our supporters that we will have the best eleven out there, to beat the Deccan Chargers.

Rather than dwell too much on individual players, I’m looking for a collective effort, as we need every player to be on their toes to ensure that we pull through this challenging phase of the competition. One must remember that we have a 12th man on our side tonight, in the form of a vociferous KSCA crowd. I’ve been told that we have a sell out 40000 capacity crowd coming in, and going by the partisan support that we have received in previous home games, tonight will be no different.

This will undoubtedly lift the players, and let’s hope that we have the desired result at the end of an exciting home t20 clash.

Ray Jennings is the former coach of the South African national team and current head coach of Royal Challengers Bangalore. He was talking to Dhruv Mullick

Well Deserve Loss against DC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If we count on non performing players we do deserve such humiliating losses.
Keep Going…Show must not stop

Posted by Sarvesh007 on 04/13 at 10:05 AM

I was in the stadium and it was rocking!!!! Keep it up RCB

Posted by koundinya on 04/13 at 03:02 AM

RCB ... RCB ....It was a stellar all-round performance on Saturday. It may be T20, but we need the likes of Dravid at any level ...
RJ & AK ... dont tinker much with the winning combination .... changes must been done based on the picth conditions and if it makes true sense .. Come on guys ... we are with you!!

Posted by Controller on 04/13 at 02:59 AM

mr. jennifer follow this team for DC

kallis & dravid open innings
piterson comes next then,

uthappa

tylor

kohili

vander merwe

praveen

mithun

vinyl

kumble

Posted by mohamedsufiyan-nedumbally on 04/12 at 10:45 PM

drop white and play van der merwe and also drop Praveen and play mithun.

Posted by dna on 04/12 at 10:28 PM

I think we should van der merwe for nagpur pitch .

Posted by dna on 04/12 at 10:25 PM

Sir don’t u feel that we lack a spinner.In last match against KKR Sriram could not even bowl 4 overs. we have strong batting line up,then why not to replace white by Merwe?????

Posted by Sarvesh007 on 04/11 at 11:57 PM

Mr Jennings, ideally if you can post 2 updates - 1 pre-match and 1 post match, that would be ideal.

I do not see any updates for the KKR match. I hope you have not been numbed into silence by the shock defeat to DC.

5 bowlers, 4 overs each is a sure recipe for failure. When the KKR batsman is waiting for PK’s last over to hammer him, send a surprise bowler - that will unsettle the batsman’s mind.

Cricket is such an old game - aren’t there standard deliveries - like yorker, chinaman, googly, etc that will stop the flow of 6ers? And if yorkers can indeed stop a 6, why not send six yorkers in an over?

Posted by Raghunath on 04/10 at 09:47 PM

our bowlers should learn to make subtle adjustments to their line and pace when they are taken to the cleaners. In the match against DC when Symonds and Suman started scoring briskly I didn’t see our kumar’s try different things. They continued to pitch the ball up to the batsmen only to be hit.
In today’s match, Romesh was hit for a six, immediately he came around the wicket to change the angle thereby stopping the carnage.

Posted by raju4rcb on 04/10 at 04:36 PM

Dear Mr.Ray,
wish you post my piece of suggestion. kindly spend two mins to read through.————————————————————————————————————-
KKR and RCB are equal on one front, their weak bowling attack. RCB has to excel in the batting front as KKR off late has started proving their stand. The last match saw some power packed cricket in last 5 overs by RCB (courtsey Virat/Kallis/White). however, the entire effort is washed away by pathetic piece of bowling form kumble, vinay, and praveen. we need to seriously start thinking on our bowling, as KKR has Gayle, Mccullam, Tiwari, Ganguly, and a few more to slaughter the opponent. The tricks suggested for tomorrow’s match -

1) play van der merwe / avoid pieterson and cameron white or taylor
2) send robin utthapa and Virat Kohli (opening) - kallis, taylor/cameroon white/pieterson, Manish Pandey, Rahul Dravid. Dravid could be pushed up in the order ahead of Kallis (since kallis accelerates the innings towards later stage, given a chance dravid can give handly blows.
3) bring Vinay Kumar and vander merwe combo/ kallis and kumble combo / save steyn’s atleast 2 overs towards the end overs
4) bowl more shorter deliveries and avoid full tosses.
5) kumble should ball against ganguly and use cameroon white/pieterson/kohli as part timers in the middle overs. not in the begining or neither at end.
6) put up 90+ in the first 10 overs. play normal till 15th as per wicket availability ( score fast if wickets available) and accelerate last 5.

players who could make a diff in this match - Ross Taylor, Dravid, and Manish Pandey. ( since all are good with overpitched bowling, which KKR normal bowls).

van der merwe, could do well against the KKR

players who could be soft target - Anil Kumble and Vinay Kumar. please have a proper course of plan agains the bats like gayle and McCullam.

Posted by shubh-mukherjee on 04/10 at 08:28 AM

Coach, Ray Jennings

I want to pay your attention here,........

As per observation. Kallis give good start but between 5 to 11 overs his games goes very slow…... His is a class, but 1 things, his strike rotate his very very slow. … …If possible can you adjust Rahul or Virat on Kallis place …? Because now days Rahul is more aggressive then Kallis & send kallis on 3 or 4th place ….
Bowler side..you really need to pay attention .. kumble bowl on 4 to 5th over but, try him on after 7th over….forget Logic here do some things out of domain…Sure it will work.Always calculation doesn’t work & give chance of Balachandra Akhil in place of Vinay Kumar & try to explore White here ...send him on 3 to 4 place..if then Morgan is correct ....!

to respected sir, DR vijay mallaya, select arrange, players as per database based upon performance, and match on hand, you need very urgently good fast bowler, currently your team is harbouring, performance contributed heavily by star foreign players, i allways belived in perfect selection of team

Posted by Vidhyasagar.indrajeet.-Kudchi on 04/10 at 06:25 AM

this are harsh words but, i have to speak out, swifting of powers, during curcical match is important,rahul dravid, is not potential 20 20 star player, then why you people allways bank upon him, this particular current ipl 3 is based upon pure natural performance, there should be hard and fast fast rule stating if you people donot perform eliminate them, this is an era of alpha competition, you should also hunt for good fastbowler, which is prequistion of current crisis. biggest mistake dropping kevin pietterson

Posted by Vidhyasagar.indrajeet.-Kudchi on 04/10 at 06:17 AM

I am big fan of RCB and Dr.Mally ... Best of luck for rest of matchs.

Posted by Makanur on 04/10 at 05:42 AM

Plz Dod’t change much in batting order. Specialy for Uttappa. snd Uttappa at opening or at No 5 if wtk falls early. If wkt fall after 14 th over send early. ITs also apply fr Taylor. why kallis nt hittting 4s during power play plz tell him hit 4s n make sure 50+ runs during power. other wise open with Dravid n pandey. Dravid has ability to place boundries in gaps. Plz Kumble bhai don’t change much in btg order. if wkts fall early snd kohli he bas ability. Plz bring Mithun instead of Vinay or Praveen. We have faith on u. we want to see our RCB in semis. plz plz plz .. Jai ho RCB.

Posted by Makanur on 04/10 at 05:39 AM

plz make a good strategy when we r batting, i can give u one if u like then plz apply that.
start with pandey and kallis, tell them we hve 2 score 50+ in 6 over. for that we can aford 1 or max 2 wickets for that.if an early wicket fallen then send white there , or if we r going ok and wicket fallen in 5th or 6th over and the against team hve good spinner(s) who will operate after 6th over then sent kohli in. and make sure we reach 100+ in 12th or max 13th over for lost of 3 wickets.
then we hve 2 score min 10 run per over for next 7 or 8 over. and we hve the hitting power like taylor and robin for that. if any collapse occurs batting then dravid is always there.

Posted by papps555 on 04/10 at 12:41 AM

we r hitting enough 6s in any match but not hit much enough 4s. and we make count very well our last 5 overs in most of our matches but we need 2 count our 1st 10 overs also. any good teams average 1st 6 overs score is 50+ and in 10 over mark must be 75 to 80+ we r always behind there. when we ok in 1st 6 over then we lose in d next 4 and always behind in 10 over mark.

Posted by papps555 on 04/10 at 12:25 AM

i think the team should be same against kkr which was against dc dont make any changes specially dont drop white or taylor and dont back pietersen in d team

Posted by papps555 on 04/10 at 12:18 AM

make some strategy 2 stop Gayle and mccullum when we ball and count d 7th 2 10th overs when we r batting

Posted by papps555 on 04/10 at 12:15 AM

plz win against kkr

Posted by papps555 on 04/10 at 12:12 AM

Hey RCB .... you are not gettings things right at the crucial times! True that we fell short by 15-20 runs, but our bowling is turning out be the VILLIAN!! We have conceeded 180+ runs in all our last 5 matches (160+ in 19 overs against CSK). Ray and team ..... please get your act together quickly… we want RCB in the semis for sure and then go on to win. COME ON RCB!!

Posted by Controller on 04/09 at 10:18 PM

I feel we lack strategy, we should target each and every player their strengths and weekness….

There should be a change in the playing 11.
1.Kallis
2.Pandey or Dravid
3.Kohli
4.Pietersen
5.Ross Taylor
6.Uttappa
7.Kumble
8.Dale Steyn
9.Praveen Kumar
10.Appanna
11.Mithun or Bhuvanesh Kumar

Posted by SIDVINAY on 04/09 at 09:00 PM

It was very disappointing to see RCB loss live in stadium.
Batting although stared by losing regular wickets but at the end it was compensated by brillant batting display by Kallis, Kohli and White helped us to put a decent, defendable total on board.
Bowling department was very poor.Praveen and Vinay gave some easy runs to the opposition.Kumble also did not perform up to the mark, here n there he gave loose delivery.Steyn bowled well but i feel he should have tried more short balls to Suman.
Fielding also needs improvements, half changes should have been converted at this standard atleast!!!
Robin missed a run out chance, kohli had a chance in point, taylor had 2 changes in the deep mid-wicket!!!
Anyways we still have a chance to make it to Semifinals, so all the very best of luck guys, work hard and smart…......

if u need yorkers at death overs thn take mithun plz….....
plz wtch the ranji trophy finals thn u will only knw hw good he is
thts y he is picked for indian test team after just one ranji trophy series
plz give him a fair chance ,like 2 to 3 matches,he will surely prove….

Posted by ymahesh on 04/09 at 11:00 AM

sir,in the batting let merwe n kallis open the innings.if merwe can get 25 to 30 in a small time then others can manage through the innings….getting merwe into the game helps to slow down the pace of the opponent innings so havin kumble n merwe combination will help the team….n do choose appanna intead of praveenn kumar n let vinay kumar b there in side…

Posted by Gogetters on 04/09 at 10:40 AM

Lovely said Sampath shetty

Posted by HEISCO on 04/09 at 05:02 AM

sir, plz plz plz do not send kp one down ....ofcourse he is a best player but he needs some time to settledown so plz plz send dravid…...........we need to win this match anyhow coz coz we cant see bangalore losing it hurts alot so plz plz plz put out d right combination by bringing dale steyn in and white or kallis out plz plz plz its my humble request…...

All the best RCB - let’s win this match I just know we can after all RCB is the best team. GO RCB
Olive

Posted by Ollie on 04/09 at 12:25 AM

hi!sir, u r right, to find winning combination is hard but person like u and anil can do the right things,so i hope that today it will be RCB victory…..

Posted by alpu on 04/08 at 11:19 PM

Sir, i respect your comments. But people will relay on other team performance just when our team is not doing good. If we do well and keep out self on top then we will never worry about other teams’ performance

Posted by koundinya on 04/08 at 11:06 PM

All the best RCB!! Do not worry abt today’s result. All that we wud like to see is some attacking and fearless cricket. On the batting front go for the kill, and prove that we are not just strong in paper. On the bowling front, short pitched deliveries are fine but you need to complement it with good toe crushing yorkers. Need to improve our death bowling…buck up guys, you can do it.